Today we are summing up the results of the year in the Russian economy, which tried to recover from the consequences of the currency, oil and systemic crises in 2015. Russia has passed the peak of the crisis. The country's economy is expected to increase next year, Speaker of the Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko said today, stressing that in is necessary to develop the real economy, as well as small and medium-sized businesses in a pro-active way instead of monitoring old prices daily.
What reserves does the Russian economy have and can we hope for in the coming year? Can we expect an increase in production, falling of inflation, increase of capital inflows and GDP growth, our experts argue? Our experts commented on these topics.
Associate Professor of Stock markets and financial engineering at RANHiGS, Vasily Yakimkin, noted in an interview with a VK correspondent that in general the Russian economy has coped with its task and the work of the government can be assessed as satisfactory.
"The economic recession was expected. Of course it is not good, but it could have been worse. Some experts expected the rate of decline of Russia's GDP would be at the level of 5% to 7%. It is at the level of 4%. It is not bad, in my opinion. The good news is that GDP growth in agriculture rose by 3% in a year. It means that import substitution partially worked. This is great, too. The petrochemical industry of Russia is also at a nice level. In general the ruble is partially detached from oil. The correlation has weakened. Is also good. Otherwise we would have seen the ruble at a level of some 80-90 rubles a dollar now. Now it is at the level of 70-71. In general we managed to improve the situation that we had planned. We were ready for the recession,’’ the expert noted.
The Chairman of the Board of the National Currency Association (NCA), Dmitry Piskulov, said in an interview with a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza that in general the Russian economy has experienced a decline in production and GDP.
"On the other hand, the President said that the peak of the crisis has passed, and we are seeing an improvement in the macroeconomic situation, which gives us the reason to hope that next year the economy will show some growth in the range of 0.5%. Many manufacturers have adapted, but many businesses, the real sector are experiencing a lack of financial resources related to the restrictive policy of the Bank of Russia in the money supply and high lending rates, which is also tied with the ongoing monetary lending policy,’’ the expert said.
